Hi, i'm the proud owner of 3 part-sets of the realrobots.co.uk dinky-toys, and am interested in building a rather large and dangerous 200kg walker robot for a robotwars.co.uk competition.

i will be writing a simulation for it, not just as proof-of-concept but because controlling 12 legs will be almost impossible manually under intense battle conditions. i'll need the simulation to develop the control software. i can't really say more about the robot's design, because then other people would make one and wipe the floor with razor [literally!]

i also own an axis.com etrax-100 developer board, which runs linux 2.0.38, has 3 serial ports, 2 parallel ports, 1 rs-485 and 1 10/100 ethernet. [their latest boards have VM, linux 2.4, and built-in bluetooth!] i hope to use this board as the controller for the walker, receiving commands from the simulation software by adapting the standard RF transmitters used by all the competitors.

i have three subscriptions, and am ordering spares
frequently. reason: lots of bits to test and break. the
axis developer board, ultimately, when the circuit diagrams
are made available (issue 19?), i will probably plug in to
control it :)

spiderbot research

12 motors, from robotbooks.com, are an INSANE $USD 4,140
(excluding shipping!). however, these motors would allow
the spiderbot's legs to move at an equally insane 11 feet
*per second*, and for *each leg* to be capable of lifting
3000 kilograms - that's 3 metric tonnes.

these are some _serious_ electric motors. normally, people
only buy one - for a spinning disk weapon!